Betfred World Championship (Tues April 19th) Last 32 !!

Holt doesn't do any better and the choke begins right here..

Cue Guru wrote:Ronnie and Fu apart, I'm not feeling the quality yet. Anyone feel that way?

Crappiest worlds I've ever seen. If Ronnie doesn't lose his mind he's already at 6. Even easier than in 2012 and 2013. Two of the Top 4 are already at Greggs and the other two trying their best to join them. Against Milkins and Holt. Atrocious stuff. World Snooker must be delighted with its high standards.

Cheshire Cat wrote:

snucar wrote:Just when you thought it doesn't get any worse than the BBC, you switch to Eurosport and...

"Well, Robertson must be feeling he plays a combination of Ronnie, Hendry, Alex Higgins and Jimmy White at the moment"

Who's the Captain Cringe that came out with that line?

Not Johnson, the other one. Yates perhaps?

snucar wrote:

Cue Guru wrote:Ronnie and Fu apart, I'm not feeling the quality yet. Anyone feel that way?

Crappiest worlds I've ever seen. If Ronnie doesn't lose his mind he's already at 6. Even easier than in 2012 and 2013. Two of the Top 4 are already at Greggs and the other two trying their best to join them. Against Milkins and Holt. Atrocious stuff. World Snooker must be delighted with its high standards.

^

SMACKDOWN from snucar again, called it!

Greggs!

Meanwhile, Ronnie is through but doesn't want to talk to anyone. I wonder if this could be the year of a young new champion or really old has been striking it big?

snucar wrote:

Cue Guru wrote:Ronnie and Fu apart, I'm not feeling the quality yet. Anyone feel that way?

Crappiest worlds I've ever seen. If Ronnie doesn't lose his mind he's already at 6. Even easier than in 2012 and 2013. Two of the Top 4 are already at Greggs and the other two trying their best to join them. Against Milkins and Holt. Atrocious stuff. World Snooker must be delighted with its high standards.

A possible solution to the problem would be to make the pockets bigger.

Snooker Overdrive wrote:

snucar wrote:

Cue Guru wrote:Ronnie and Fu apart, I'm not feeling the quality yet. Anyone feel that way?

Crappiest worlds I've ever seen. If Ronnie doesn't lose his mind he's already at 6. Even easier than in 2012 and 2013. Two of the Top 4 are already at Greggs and the other two trying their best to join them. Against Milkins and Holt. Atrocious stuff. World Snooker must be delighted with its high standards.

A possible solution to the problem would be to make the pockets bigger.

Just let them play on pool tables next time.

Snooker Overdrive wrote:

snucar wrote:

Cue Guru wrote:Ronnie and Fu apart, I'm not feeling the quality yet. Anyone feel that way?

Crappiest worlds I've ever seen. If Ronnie doesn't lose his mind he's already at 6. Even easier than in 2012 and 2013. Two of the Top 4 are already at Greggs and the other two trying their best to join them. Against Milkins and Holt. Atrocious stuff. World Snooker must be delighted with its high standards.

A possible solution to the problem would be to make the pockets bigger.

Ok, so move from the 3.5'' club pockets on the table to bigger ones? Could we slip a 9-ball on the table as well?

I think that perhaps it's a bit disengenous to criticise the standard of this competition. We look back at previous WCs and think that it was high standard stuff throughout and all players were amazing. For example, look at Hendry's win in 1996 and who he beat.

Jason Ferguson
Gary Wilkinson
Darren Morgan
Nigel Bond
Peter Ebdon

Apart from Ebdon and perhaps Bond, none of those players would be good enough to compete in the top 16 of today. Bond maybe top 16 but definitely not top 8. When you have players like Ding and Carter having to qualify you see the strength of the game currently.

It's very easy to look at one session and criticise quality. You really need the competition to finish before doing a proper analysis of the standard IMO.

Come on, Milky!

Selby is there for the taking.

Milkins will start choking now, I suspect.

Pedro147 wrote:I think that perhaps it's a bit disengenous to criticise the standard of this competition. We look back at previous WCs and think that it was high standard stuff throughout and all players were amazing. For example, look at Hendry's win in 1996 and who he beat.

Jason Ferguson
Gary Wilkinson
Darren Morgan
Nigel Bond
Peter Ebdon

Apart from Ebdon and perhaps Bond, none of those players would be good enough to compete in the top 16 of today. Bond maybe top 16 but definitely not top 8. When you have players like Ding and Carter having to qualify you see the strength of the game currently.

It's very easy to look at one session and criticise quality. You really need the competition to finish before doing a proper analysis of the standard IMO.

Hmmm, the competition in 00s was intense. Yep, Hendry had a weak era luckily for him. The qualifiers are match sharp this year and they're giving it a go, saying, if I go down, I go down fighting and I go down putting on a good show. I think this scares the seeds, puts pressure on them because they're meant to win and the qualifiers have nothing to lose, they've already succeeded by being there. Plus they've practised a lot and won three matches, their confidence is good.

Indeed, Selby won't keep missing chances IMO.

Milkins has had plenty of them, yesterday and today. Can't help but feel he needs to start winning frames in one visit.

Cue Guru wrote:

Pedro147 wrote:I think that perhaps it's a bit disengenous to criticise the standard of this competition. We look back at previous WCs and think that it was high standard stuff throughout and all players were amazing. For example, look at Hendry's win in 1996 and who he beat.

Jason Ferguson
Gary Wilkinson
Darren Morgan
Nigel Bond
Peter Ebdon

Apart from Ebdon and perhaps Bond, none of those players would be good enough to compete in the top 16 of today. Bond maybe top 16 but definitely not top 8. When you have players like Ding and Carter having to qualify you see the strength of the game currently.

It's very easy to look at one session and criticise quality. You really need the competition to finish before doing a proper analysis of the standard IMO.

Hmmm, the competition in 00s was intense. Yep, Hendry had a weak era luckily for him. The qualifiers are match sharp this year and they're giving it a go, saying, if I go down, I go down fighting and I go down putting on a good show. I think this scares the seeds, puts pressure on them because they're meant to win and the qualifiers have nothing to lose, they've already succeeded by being there. Plus they've practised a lot and won three matches, their confidence is good.

I agree, it really was a golden era for snooker but it's like every time someone wins something it's because the table is easy to play on or a player bottled it. It's a micro-analysis on all parts of the game which doesn't paint an overall picture.

That red touched the cushion a foot before the pocket and dropped!

Important frame, but he's still quite wobbly

Ahh what's happened? Just turned on its 7-6 milkins in the balls the quickly things go sour lol

Big ask for milky to win 4 out of 5.

Cue Guru wrote:Big ask for milky to win 4 out of 5.

He won the last 4 out of 5...

Cue Guru wrote:That red touched the cushion a foot before the pocket and dropped!

That's a micro-analysis of a single part of the game which doesn't paint an overall picture.

snucar wrote:

Cue Guru wrote:That red touched the cushion a foot before the pocket and dropped!

That's a micro-analysis of a single part of the game which doesn't paint an overall picture.

That's the worry tho it'll be like American pool balls hitting half way down cushion and going i!

snucar wrote:

Cue Guru wrote:That red touched the cushion a foot before the pocket and dropped!

That's a micro-analysis of a single part of the game which doesn't paint an overall picture.

Because there's never ever ever been a tournament were that's happened before. These players are playing on easy tables.

LC wrote:

snucar wrote:

Cue Guru wrote:That red touched the cushion a foot before the pocket and dropped!

That's a micro-analysis of a single part of the game which doesn't paint an overall picture.

That's the worry tho it'll be like American pool balls hitting half way down cushion and going i!

Relatively speaking it already is. Play on a true Star table, OMG, they'd be struggling to hit 50s with this standard of play.

Ronnie O'Sullivan has received a formal warning:

Ronnie O'Sullivan has received a formal warning from World Snooker after failing to fulfil media obligations at the World Championship in Sheffield. He refused to speak to reporters after his first-round win over David Gilbert. World Snooker says any further breaches by the five-time champion will result in a fine and possible further action by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association."

If he's upset because the BBC gave Stuart Bingham and Shaun Murphy interviews and they said "Ronnie isn't the greatest" - that's really silly. A snooker player is entitled to give their opinion and O'Sullivan shouldn't see it as some conspiracy to undermine him. Very disappointed with Ronnie's reaction. Hopefully he will see sense and do further post match interviews. If he doesn't then I fear he's going to get a lot more criticism.

Well, he might still lose this match, but Milkins has gone up a tad in my eyes. Some of the snookers he's escaped from in this match in one or two tries have been incredible.

Murphy should be the one getting fined for suggesting that a way to improve the game would be for any foul to be ball-in-hand anywhere on the table.

Biggest load of bullocks that any snooker player will ever speak.

Anyway, it's as I thought. Milkins seems to have missed the boat by failing to convert frames in one visit, as Selby is doing.

Pedro147 wrote:

snucar wrote:

Cue Guru wrote:That red touched the cushion a foot before the pocket and dropped!

That's a micro-analysis of a single part of the game which doesn't paint an overall picture.

Because there's never ever ever been a tournament were that's happened before. These players are playing on easy tables.

And it's leveling the field in a scandalous way. Even Dott was going down to shots in 3 seconds. That's how much confidence they're getting and it gives them options on shots that wouldn't be there normally. But it adds extra pressure on their safety though, it must be said. That's why the safety play it's pretty much below par up to now. The general quality will definitely improve as the tournament goes deeper and players should adapt, but it's doing severe damage right now. Barry freakin Hearn doesn't give a flying buck about the nature of this game, all he wants is drama+rates. Good snooker is just an option to him. It should be the other way around, really.

snucar wrote:

Pedro147 wrote:

snucar wrote:

Cue Guru wrote:That red touched the cushion a foot before the pocket and dropped!

That's a micro-analysis of a single part of the game which doesn't paint an overall picture.

Because there's never ever ever been a tournament were that's happened before. These players are playing on easy tables.

And it's leveling the field in a scandalous way. Even Dott was going down to shots in 3 seconds. That's how much confidence they're getting and it gives them options on shots that wouldn't be there normally. But it adds extra pressure on their safety though, it must be said. That's why the safety play it's pretty much below par up to now. The general quality will definitely improve as the tournament goes deeper and players should adapt, but it's doing severe damage right now. Barry freakin Hearn doesn't give a flying buck about the nature of this game, all he wants is drama+rates. Good snooker is just an option to him. It should be the other way around, really.

Well, some are saying WS fitters are cutting the rubbers easy here and harder in China. Maybe they don't want to offend Star by cutting Star tables beyond the Star template in Star's home patch? Alex Higgins said it way back and he was right about the tables.

snucar wrote:

Pedro147 wrote:

snucar wrote:

Cue Guru wrote:That red touched the cushion a foot before the pocket and dropped!

That's a micro-analysis of a single part of the game which doesn't paint an overall picture.

Because there's never ever ever been a tournament were that's happened before. These players are playing on easy tables.

And it's leveling the field in a scandalous way. Even Dott was going down to shots in 3 seconds. That's how much confidence they're getting and it gives them options on shots that wouldn't be there normally. But it adds extra pressure on their safety though, it must be said. That's why the safety play it's pretty much below par up to now. The general quality will definitely improve as the tournament goes deeper and players should adapt, but it's doing severe damage right now. Barry freakin Hearn doesn't give a flying buck about the nature of this game, all he wants is drama+rates. Good snooker is just an option to him. It should be the other way around, really.

But Dott was doing that on his safety play also not just his pots. Dott's highest break was 88 and he only made two more breaks over 50. Not exactly potting them from all angles was he.

The table conditions have been poor though with quick bounces off the cushions that has caused players to lose position. If anything this has hampered breaking building, not aided it.

snooker_loopy wrote:Ronnie O'Sullivan has received a formal warning:

Ronnie O'Sullivan has received a formal warning from World Snooker after failing to fulfil media obligations at the World Championship in Sheffield. He refused to speak to reporters after his first-round win over David Gilbert. World Snooker says any further breaches by the five-time champion will result in a fine and possible further action by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association."

If he's upset because the BBC gave Stuart Bingham and Shaun Murphy interviews and they said "Ronnie isn't the greatest" - that's really silly. A snooker player is entitled to give their opinion and O'Sullivan shouldn't see it as some conspiracy to undermine him. Very disappointed with Ronnie's reaction. Hopefully he will see sense and do further post match interviews. If he doesn't then I fear he's going to get a lot more criticism.

Except Ronnie can't go on tv and say what he wants concerning these two muppets and who is the GOAT as he'll be fined by WS. He doesn't get to enjoy free speech. He's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. Ronnie doesn't want to pick fights either. He's got his tight team of three, Kenno, Dr Steve and Hurst. He likes to keep the positive vibe going with them and not get negative. If he goes on the BBC, he will inevitably be wound up by Hazel and the muppets and their stupid questions.

Think we're over-analyzing here to be honest. For me the only problem with the tables is the cloth which is too quick and means the pack splits too easily, so one angle on the black and the reds are everywhere. Because of this you lose a little craft, because previously you'd have to chip away. The pockets are not big, more like the tv cameras are a little deceptive and make them look big.
I do think though that we need good semis and the best players there. So yes, Robbo, Selby Ronnie and Judd need to be there or thereabouts.